Immediate Family

About William Logan Crittenden

Newspaper account:

“An American kneels only to his God, and always faces his enemy,”* declared William Logan Crittenden, refusing to kneel before his executioners in Havana this date in 1851.

This well-bred Kentuckian veteran of the Mexican-American War ditched a New Orleans customs-house gig when Narciso Lopez formed a private filibustering expedition to try to steal Cuba from the Spanish.

Placed at the head of one of Lopez’s three battalions, Crittenden’s force was cut off and overwhelmed by the Spanish.

He and 50 of his command captured with him were all ordered for immediate execution, six at a time, as pirates, with just a few hours’ allowance to take down official statements and scribble their hasty goodbyes. With “not the heart to write to any of my family,” Crittenden sent one to a friend giving his farewells … then, just before the end, dashed off another addressed to the Attorney General of the United States — his uncle, John J. Crittenden.

Dear Uncle: In a few moments some fifty of us will be shot. We came with Lopez. You will do me the justice to believe that my motive was a good one. I was deceived by Lopez — he, as well as the public press, assured me tat the island was in a state of prosperous revolution.

I am commanded to finish writing at once.

Your nephew,

W.L. Crittenden

I will die like a man

All this scene, including a post-mortem mutilation by the enraged mob of onlookers, became a bloody banner for U.S. Southerners — since expanding the slave power was core to the entire filibustering project.

When word of the shootings reached New Orleans, a crowd sacked the Spanish consulate.

But in the international relations game, the U.S. had disavowed filibustering and its raiders enjoyed no special diplomatic protection. When a number of the later prisoners were returned in chains to Spain, the Millard Fillmore administration asked their release, but had no grounds to demand it. It was a touchy diplomatic situation … one that our late Crittenden’s uncle, as a member of cabinet, was right in the middle of.

Fillmore eventually secured the captives’ release, atoning the insult to the European power’s agents by causing the Spanish colors to be saluted in New Orleans in honor of the birth of the Infanta Isabella.

All this mincing instead of brawling struck a certain variety of hothead as distinctly unmanful.

"Our flag has been wantonly insulted in the Caribbean sea … captured citizens of our country [were] sent in a slave ship to the coast of Spain, fettered, according to the custom of that inhuman traffic, and released, not as an acknowledgement of wrong on demand of our government, but as a gracious boon accorded to a friendly suit … Whilst the dying words of Crittenden yet rung in the American ear, and the heart turned sickening away from the mutilated remains of his liberty-loving followers; whilst public indignation yet swelled at the torture which had been inflicted on our captive countrymen, even then we were called upon to witness a further manifestation of the truckling spirit of the administration."

William Logan Crittenden, the Goat of the Class of 1845, had fought well in Mexico, but had not received a brevet or attained the recognition he felt he deserved. One of his classmates and fellow officers said he was “a brave, fearless officer – I may say a somewhat reckless fellow.” Lucy Holcombe, a renowned Texas belle and Crittenden’s fiancée, gave a more sympathetic description:

[He] must have been in early youth very beautiful; for the free careless grace of childhood still lingered on the bold brow of the man, though passion had pressed its pallor on his cheek. The lines around the mouth denoted thought, even care; and the smile of the lip, though sweet, was uncertain. It was a frank and generous face... [with] large fearless eyes, with their half tender, half defiant charm.

Seeing no future as a career officer in peacetime, Crittenden resigned his commission in March 1849 to seek more profitable opportunities as a mercenary. He was certainly well qualified, being young, ambitious, West Point trained and experienced in war. The years after the Mexican War were a time of ferment in Latin America, hence a time of opportunity for men with military experience and a sense of adventure. To some young men the war was an inspiration – if a relatively small army of Americans could humble mighty Mexico, what might others do in the less powerful, less stable countries to the south? He and other mercenaries were called Filibusters, a term originally used to refer to Caribbean pirates.

Crittenden joined a group seeking to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule, led by a tall, white-haired, distinguished looking Spaniard, General Narciso Lopez. Their 1851 expedition led to one of the most notorious international incidents in 19th Century American history.